Athletics at the 1912 Stockholm Summer Games:

Men's Pentathlon

Host City: Stockholm, Sweden
Venue(s): Stockholm Olympic Stadium, Stockholm
Date Started: July 7, 1912
Date Finished: July 7, 1912
Format: Scored by points-for-place in each event. Twelve top finishers after three events advanced to the fourth event (discus throw). Six top finishers (and ties) advanced to the fifth event (1,500 metres). After three events, the totals were re-scored counting the marks among only the 12 qualifiers for the final two events. Ties were broken using the decathlon scoring tables.

Summary

At the eastern U.S. Olympic Trials on 18 May 1912, held in New York, [Jim Thorpe] won easily, setting what is considered the first world record in the pentathlon with 3,656.980 points (3,372 on the 1985 tables). He was considered the American favorite in the Olympic pentathlon, but it was difficult to handicap the field as the event had never been contested internationally.

Thorpe solved the problem rather simply by winning four of the five events contested. Only in the javelin throw was he beaten by any athlete, as both Swedenâs [Hugo Wieslander] and [Oscar Lemming] posted longer javelin throws. Thorpeâs dominance was almost complete. Using 1912 scoring tables, his margin of victory was over 400 points.

But as in the decathlon, Jim Thorpe only kept his pentathlon gold medal until early 1913 when he was disqualified for professionalism. The gold medal reverted to Norwayâs [Ferdinand Bie]. For a complete description of the Thorpe controversy, see Appendix II. Thorpe has also been awarded the Challenge Trophy for the pentathlon, which had been donated by the King of Sweden.

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